Taken from the author's doctoral dissertation, this award-winning monograph describes a method for humanizing educational research in adult education and provides five stories of adult education efforts in the 1930's as examples of such research. The method described suggests valuing qualitative data as much as quantitative in the field of history. Suggested ways of gathering such data, from the author's personal experience in researching his dissertation, are: wide reading in the literature of the period, viewing films and reading film criticisms of the era, reviewing histories of the period, researching demographic data, correspondence with adults who had conducted or participated in adult education programs in the decade, and a few interviews. Stories presented in this booklet are the following: (1) the Walter Gumbel-Paul Miller mentor-protege relationship; (2) John Studebaker, Lyman Bryson, Paul Sheats, and the National Public Forums; (3) two "dropouts"--Loren Eisely and Edmund Love; (4) women in adult education in the 1930's; and (5) the Civilian Conservation Corps. (KC)